FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT POLICE HEADQUARTERS - PAGE 3

Suffolk's Creekside Elementary will cost about $18 million -- $3.8 million more than first estimated. Suffolk's City Council got its first look Wednesday at next year's proposed budget for improving parks, schools, cultural facilities, fire and police stations and equipment and other public services. The budget, called the capital improvements plan, sets out about $28.1 million in new projects for the fiscal year that begins July 2005. That's about $6.8 million less than Suffolk is spending this year, not including water- and sewer-related projects.

Newport News rezoned the property to prevent similar clubs from opening at the site, which once was a headache for neighbors. The pending relocation of an adult-care center in midtown allows the city to build a driveway to a proposed police headquarters and also prevents a troublesome Denbigh nightclub from reopening. The city's housing authority approved a $300,000 loan earlier this month that will help Because We Care, an adult-care center with about 40 residents, buy and renovate the former nightclub.

NN man jailed on attempted theft charge YORK - Sheriff's investigators have arrested a Newport News man on suspicion of trying to rob a Route 17 7-Eleven in York County on Tuesday. Michael Eugene Kelly, 24, was arrested early Wednesday morning and charged with attempted robbery and wearing a mask in public. He is being held in the Newport News City Jail. York-Poquoson deputies had been looking for a man who walked into the 7-Eleven about 3:55 a.m. Tuesday with a weapon.

You can run but you cannot hide, Curtis McCray learned Wednesday. A detective caught McCray trying to escape through the ceiling of an interview room at police headquarters. McCray, 30, was arrested Wednesday afternoon when an employee at Denbigh Video, 15505 Warwick Blvd., recognized him as the man suspected of stealing a VCR from the business July 3, said police spokeswoman Lynn James. "The man walked into the video store, milled around and when the clerk got busy, he grabbed the VCR and ran," James said.

Dawn Barber, Newport News assistant police chief, has been placed on administrative leave after she was arrested by state police Saturday night and charged with driving under the influence. Barber was stopped on Interstate 64 near King Street in Hampton, said Michelle Cotten, a spokeswoman for the Virginia State Police. According to documents at Hampton General District Court, Barber failed a breath test when she was found to have a blood alcohol concentration of 0.12 grams per 210 liters of breath.

A 26-year-old man who confessed last year to killing a 13-year-old Hampton boy but was cleared by police allegedly set two fires in his house while his parents and brother were asleep, police said Tuesday. Michael Scott Bottoms of the first block of Rue Degrasse was being held without bond at Central State Hospital in Petersburg Tuesday on three counts of attempted murder and one count of arson, said police Investigator Chuck Buffington. Bottoms was sent to the psychiatric hospital for evaluation after the Monday morning incident, Buffington said.

Two students turned themselves in to West Point High School officials, who took them to police. Two West Point High School students have admitted to inserting a racial slur on the school's marquee and running a Confederate flag up the school's flagpole. Police Chief Bill Hodges said the two turned themselves in Thursday to school authorities, who then brought them to police headquarters. Hodges said he probably wouldn't charge the two, but he rather would let school officials handle discipline.

By DAVID MACAULAY, dmacaulay@dailypress.com 247-7838 | February 14, 2009

The suspect in an armed robbery at a McDonald's restaurant in Newport News on Friday was taken into custody by police after an afternoon car chase. Police spokesman Lou Thurston said the 27-year-old Newport News man is linked to an armed robbery at the restaurant near Todd Stadium on Warwick Boulevard that happened about 3:35 p.m. When police saw a blue car matching the getaway vehicle outside Riverside Regional Medical Center, they asked the driver to stop, but he sped away and a chase ensued.

Police officers who were killed in the line of duty were remembered at ceremonies in Newport News and Hampton on Monday. The services marked the beginning of National Police Week. In Newport News, 11 officers have been killed on duty. The first was Capt. Robert H. Smith, who was killed in an automobile accident in 1919. The two most recent deaths were in 1994. On Jan. 11, Officer Steven Rutherford was shot and killed while working undercover disguised as a pizza delivery person, to investigate a string of robberies.

James City County officers think that the robbery is related to one last week. Police think that a Friday afternoon robbery at Bay Community Bank might be related to another at Bank of America in Monticello Marketplace last week. The bank robbed Friday is next to police headquarters on John Tyler Highway. James City Police Chief Emmett Harmon was among officers who responded to the call. James City Police spokesman Mike Spearman said a man entered Bay Community Bank, 5125 John Tyler Highway, about 2:20 p.m. Spearman said the man displayed a chrome-plated revolver to a teller and said, "Give me the money."